Plaxo users worried about privacy in wake of Comcast buyout

Popular online address book and social network service Plaxo announced …

Popular online address book and social networking site Plaxo announced yesterday that it had reached a deal to be acquired by Comcast. The agreement will leave Plaxo operating independently in Silicon Valley while reporting to Comcast, although it plans to integrate its current services with projects from Comcast to make both companies' offerings more robust. Despite the promises of independence, however, some Plaxo users are concerned about the deal and are closing their accounts.

The deal comes after a year of the two companies working together on various projects that integrate Plaxo's services with Comcast's. Comcast's SmartZone will launch later this year with Plaxo's address book functionality, and the site already hosts address book accounts for Comcast's webmail users. The company said on its blog that its reach has more than doubled to about 50 million users as a result of its partnerships with the cable giant.

As part of the acquisition, Plaxo is currently working with Comcast to "socially enable" the media experience in places like Comcast's main portal (Comcast.net) in addition to media-focused sites like Fancast and Fandango. "Together, we intend to deliver on a vision of making 'social media' a natural part of the lives of regular people, not just early-adopters," reads the Plaxo blog. It goes on to say that users should be able to post photos online and have friends and family view them at home, work, or on a mobile device; or be able to discover new TV shows to watch based on what friends have recommended. "[B]oth of our services benefit from 'network effect,' which is to say that the more people who use them, the more useful they become."

As to be expected, not everyone was happy about the news. A number of commenters on the Plaxo blog expressed skepticism towards Plaxo's continued commitment to serving existing Plaxo users as well as its stance on data privacy. Additionally, there were endless declarations across the blogosphere and on Twitter about people closing their Plaxo accounts for fear that Comcast might abuse their (and their friends') information.

Plaxo insists, however, that it remains committed to giving users ownership and control of their own data, and that it will continue to maintain a strong privacy policy. "Comcast has a similarly strong privacy policy, and we are both committed to ensuring that the protections users have come to expect will continue," the company said. Despite the above fears, most of Plaxo's everyday users may not even notice a change, and will likely continue to utilize the company's services as they continue to grow.

Jacqui Cheng
Jacqui is an Editor at Large at Ars Technica, where she has spent the last eight years writing about Apple culture, gadgets, social networking, privacy, and more. Emailjacqui@arstechnica.com//Twitter@eJacqui